Percy's Sweet Demise
by Ki-hori-e-te-ao
Summary: Penelope is his heroin. His addiction. He'll hurt for her, he'll hurt because of her. He is addicted and Penny is his heroin, his drug and only she could cause his sweet demise. Set in an AU with no magic.


**Keep in mind this is based in an AU world with no magic.**

* * *

You know those types of people, the constant person that's always in your life, but never truly impacted it. That is Percy Weasley.

In a huge family filled with quirky, yet loveable characters, dull Percy never really did bring attention to himself. His grades were good, but so were Bill's and he was a decent sportsman, but Charlie is better. He's sarcastic, but the twins worked that better. He was a good big brother to Ron and Ginny, but he's not their favourites. He's never enough and when you're confused and alone and young, things happen. For him, Penelope happened.

* * *

Hogwarts is a private school in every sense of the word, it was whimsical. Almost magical and very out of his parents price range, but with promises of great marks from the parents, some pulled strings from an old friend and just a bit of luck, the Weasley family got accepted. One by one of course, but they got there in the end and fourteen year old Percy is never gladder that they got to Hogwarts, until he meets Penelope Clearwater.

She is the epitome of perfect. Cascading golden curls, straight, white teeth, piercing azure eyes and the most endearing wit ever. A naïve, puberty-induced Percy jumped at the chance when she showed interest. She's only fourteen too, but she has Percy wrapped around her slender fingers and enamoured by her piercing gaze. Only a look from her sends him in to a blustering mess. He becomes as articulate as a brick around her, but still she flirted and smiled and fluttered her lashes, despite her obviously being able to do better. Like previously stated, lonely pubescent teens with no guidance cause stuff to happen and Penelope is his catalyst. Penelope is his heroin, because he's addicted to her even though she is ruining his life.

It starts after they officially become a couple. No one but them know and holding hands when people aren't looking, planning dates to movies where no one their age will go to, sitting at the astronomy tower for hours on end is so fun. The thrill of maybe having their affair found out, even if they hadn't actually kissed yet, it was addicting. Thrilling.

But soon the novelty wore off and it starts. It, is the mind games. She starts talking to other boys and he doesn't mind at first, but then there's the finger brushing, the whispers and fluttered lashes and Percy is driving himself crazy trying not to snap. All the while Penelope is saying that nothing is happening, that Percy is paranoid and say something enough times, someone will believe it.

Someone does, Percy does. He thinks the whispers are figments and the fluttered lashes just a habit of hers. Then he thinks he's not good enough, so he tries to become more like the guys she talked in public with, because maybe then they can finally tell people. So, he begins to go on more runs to get lean like Oliver Wood, eat more food to turn it into muscle as sturdy as Marcus Flint, to study harder to best that damned Kevin Harte.

Penelope approves of the changes, her eyes wander less and less, before suddenly, they're not just sneaking to the astronomy tower to talk, but to have their first kiss together. Hand holding has evolved to cuddling when alone and the thrill is back. Penelope is his heroin, he needs her to survive. He's addicted to her.

* * *

Summer is both the best and worst thing to come.

Penelope and Percy had dated for nearly eight months by then and the separation hits him hard. He starts to wonder, _what's Penelope doing? Is she thinking of me?_ He hopes she is and when her first letter arrives, he hides it and locks it in a box for safe-keeping, after reading, absorbing all the information within. He sends a letter back, surreptitiously telling her to send it to the post office instead of his house; lest his nosy brothers get the mail instead of their Mother.

For the beginning of the holidays, it's like that. Every few days they'd send letters, covered with all these cheesy romantic lines he gathered from reading romance novels, just to impress her. But, the letters aren't enough for him and two months is two months and one day too long for him to be without her, so he runs away to her house, only for the night.

It's hard for him to get from Ottery. St. Catchpole to Middle London in a day, but Percy's always been a conscientious person, so he leaves a note saying he went somewhere he didn't and in the unlikely case they notice he's missing, they can assume he just left to the Lovegood's household.

It takes him a three k run, two buses and two trains to get to her house, where he plays the sweaty, gross Romeo awaiting his Juliet; but the elation in her eyes when he taps on her window is enough for him not to care. Even though a few of her neighbour are looking at him like he's mad when he recites poems he barely understands to her, because he only needs her.

It's seven at night when he leaves and he got there at two in the afternoon, but when she smiles at him it's all worth it, so who cares. When he gets home, through the window at ten o'clock, his note is left unread, but it's alright, because Percy has pretty eyes according to Penny. That's what he falls asleep thinking. Not the gnawing pain that's asking why his family don't care for him.

Summer days go on like that. It goes from a day or two a week, to everyday. He doesn't realise what's starting. How dependent he is on her. Doesn't see that he's stealing stuff she likes for her at the mall or how he's blatantly lying to his parents to satisfy her needs. Because he's not alone, so he'll do anything for her.

The games are getting crueller, they're nearly fifteen and nearing the one year mark, when she starts calling him clingy. Calling him a nerd. Calling him up-tight and stealing some scarfs and jeans doesn't impress her anymore and their perfect summer is ending in disaster and he feels so worthless. So, he plans something big. He shows up at her house nearing nine when she's just dozing off and took her to the lake near his house. The journey is silent, but she looks gorgeous in her new cardigan dress, one he 'bought' for her, that he doesn't mind.

They sit near the lake and he gives her favourite strawberry ice cream, despite it being so expensive that he had to steal and sell a carton of cigarettes to buy the small tub. He whispers all these poetic rhymes he made especially for her. A necklace, which cost him his uncles old, pure gold wrist watch and some cuff links he nicked from a stranger, is laid in her hand. It's a pure silver string with her name engraved to the square-shaped locket. It gleams emerald and amethyst and her eyes sparkle in delight.

He can ignore how his family is still struggling financially as long as Penny is happy. But, the bigger the gesture, the shorter amount of time she stays happy.

* * *

Fifth year starts.

He's made prefect due to his grades, top of his class he brags, hoping to see her eyes shimmer again. They don't, instead he is called a geek. She never apologised, but they kiss in a hidden corner during prefect patrolling so it's _fine_.

Percy sometimes watches out for Ron, who just started school, but Penelope calls, so Ron is put to the side, while he breaks trying to please Penelope. She's his heroin, his addiction.

Penelope wants to copy his homework, fine, because she kisses his cheek in public as a thanks. She absolutely needs something from Hogsmeade but can't afford it. Percy will get it for her. Can't attend patrolling one night because she's too tired, we don't want a sleepy, grouchy Penelope, so it's fine. Rumours are going around she's been hooking up with Oliver Wood? Bullshit, she doesn't like how obsessed he is with sports. Penelope is his heroin. His one and only.

Somewhere along the way, her comments become crueller.

_'Why are you so annoying Percy?'_

_'Can't you just ditch those geeky glasses, maybe then I'd want to be seen with you!' _

_'What!? You look so scrawny, where are you muscles? Are you even a guy?'_

_ 'Stop being so clingy!'_

So he does. He stops talking as much. Starts wearing contacts, with his parent's permission. Eats more and exercises more. Stops clinging to her, instead trailing a respectful distance behind her. He doesn't argue back. She's right, she's always right. He is annoying. He needs to change.

He feels so hurt though, but he keeps trying and trying and he's losing weight and stopped smiling and his grades are the only thing he has, but even then they feel fake. Meetings, talking, trying feels so _fake_ and kissing her doesn't feel like anything. It just happens now, when she wants _anything_ he complies. She wants better grades, she's top of their year and he's second. A date? When and where, he'll pay. Excuses, he's got dozens to spare. His virginity. Okay, fine, it doesn't matter that they haven't even said I love you yet. She is his heroin, always, always taking and he is powerless against her.

* * *

Sixth year starts and Penelope and him finally reveal their secret relationship.

When Ginny walks in on him, Penelope is unbuttoning his shirt to feel the abs he's been getting and he is powerless. Penelope ravages his mouth and he stays perfectly still, understanding the punishment that comes of being too eager. Of course, his mouth moves, but he make sure his hands stay on her hips, lest she hit him for taking advantage of her.

Ginny looks horrified and he offers a weak, apathetic glance at his sister before she runs away. The next day rumours are flying and Penelope answers them, by kissing him in front of everyone and now others knew. Knew how perfect she is, how lucky he is and it's all fine and dandy. So what if she has a habit of hitting him when he messes up. It's his fault. He's wrong, she's right. He'll hurt for her, he needs her. So he takes the impacts of books and hides the bruises and scrubs his skin red because he's such a screw up.

Then, she breaks up with him. That hurts worst than anything and without her he is going insane. He can't cope without her. It's so sudden and he can't bear it. Two years wasted. He just can't bear seeing her flirt with other guys and he feels so lonely. So angry. So wrong. It takes a while for the dawning to come.

* * *

When he sees her and Oliver lip-locking after a football game, he snaps. It hasn't been a fortnight since they broke up. He feels so dirty.

Everything's clear to the sixteen year old, he's been used. To steal. To parade around. His emotions toyed for gain. It's a moment of clear realisation and he's no longer some confused pubescent, but a hollowed out young adult with no prospect in life. Penelope was life, so what's he to do without her smile, without her knowing looks, without breaking for her. He can't cope. So, he doesn't. One day he's in class, the next day he's not. He's in his dorm, just thinking. Thinking of how wrong everything is.

He confuses himself somewhere along the way.

Everything is so blurry. He can't remember his last conversation with anyone other than Penelope, because she asked him to stop talking so much, she said it was annoying. Can't remember going out with anyone other than Penelope in the last year, because no one else will ever tolerate his annoying persona, right? That's what Penny did he last interact with the family? It was Christmas. That was two months ago. He'd quit tutoring and chess club at Penelope's request. He'd stop talking to Audrey, Lucy, Cho, Cedric, Ernie, Seamus. All the people he'd tutored, even though he thought them well.

But, Percy was pulling away from Penelope, so they needed more time together. Without Penelope his life is so hollow and he wonders what he used to do before her, but suddenly playing chess feels mundane and studying reminds him of Penelope. Moving is too much and the world is so loathesome.

Percy doesn't move. At first his roommates assume he's sick. But the thing is, you need to be alive to get sick and quite frankly, Percy Weasley is dead in spite of his perfectly functioning organs. Because he's just been played and it doesn't hurt. To hurt means to feel, to feel means to live and as previously stated, Percy Weasley is not alive. But it does suck, a dead person should really know what sucking means.

Suddenly 'at first' becomes, 'it's been a week mate, the teachers are getting worried about you skiving off'. So, dully he moves. He goes to class and pointedly ignores Penelope and all the questioning gazes. He sends letters to his fretting mother in annoyance, chalking up his disappearance from school to a brief stomach bug. Pushes it all to the side and develops a dull routine to structure his dull life.

Somethings though, he can't push away. Like Oliver Wood groping Penelope's arse in maths. How he's never paying attention in class, because class is so mundane. He can't push away the twins excessive pranks, meant to cheer him up, not that he knew that. Worried gazes and rumours can't be pushed away. But food can. People can. So he pushes more food and more people away. They're annoying anyways.

"Perce, are you okay mate?"

"Mind yourself, Diggory!"

"Hey, Percy I know your break up with Penelope was bad, but mate get over it."

"Excuse me George, it seems I have no desire to talk to an inept baboon."

"Hey...Perce? D-do you wanna hang out? I mean, I really would like to talk and..."

"Just go away Ginny, I'm busy."

"Oi, Weasley, when was the last time you ate?"

"Shove off Flint!"

"Look Percy, I'm sorry about Penny, but we can still be friends right?"

"When exactly did we become friends, Wood?"

People are pushed away. Food is pushed away. He's not hungry, because he's just lost his appetite, just as he lost his life. He has no idea what to do and he finishes school next year and why is everything just so bad? But, his demise is nearing.

Wake up. Hate the world. Think about Penelope. Get up. Go for a run to waste time. Scrub body red in shower. Change fast to avoid questioning. Make bed very slowly. Look at homework in annoyance, before stuffing it in bag and think of excuses on why it is incomplete. Start class. Depending on class, be subjected to obvious rumours, watching Penelope and wondering why he's not good enough or both. Skipping lunch in favour of hating the world. Hating the world, yet still forcing oneself to boorish class. Walking to- his usual schedule is interrupted. He faints.

His demise is nearing.

When the aforementioned fainting incident occurs, he's luckily or unluckily, depending on the point of view, him taking to the latter, nowhere near the ridiculous stairs. Again, luckily or unluckily, his neck and head are still firmly attached. As firm as the I.v in his arms, because apparently, according to his doctors, his parents and even his siblings, he is depressed. The word eating disorder, maniac depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, catatonic and apathy get out and Percy can't. It's just too hard so he stops.

Medication is forced down his throat. Food, tube feed. Bills stacked and more than once his mother sobs out, 'How could we let this happen!'

Two years ago...One year ago, he might have cared. Might have responded. Now he stares blankly at her and is marked as unresponsive in St. Mungo's patient files.

Apathetic is a good word to describe him, because he can't seem to feel. Not when his Mum and Dad come in crying, even though his father never cries. Not when Bill and Charlie watch him in disbelief and shame, wondering why they're such useless older brothers. Not when the twins are subdued and shell-shocked, because they're only fourteen, so what do they do? Or when twelve-year-old Ron and eleven year old Ginny are so confused on what's wrong with their big brother. He's just apathetic. Or maybe he's just pathetic.

Really, all he can think of is Penelope. He thinks about how she saved him from loneliness. Of all the things she lied to him about. Of all the changes he'd undergone, just to be tossed to the side when he wasn't needed. Doctors try to talk to him, everyone tries to garner a response from the sixteen-year-old, yet none succeeded. All it succeeded in doing is raising his annoyance to a deafening peak.

And so, at seventeen-years-old, Percy Ignatius Weasley succumbs to Anorexia Nervosa. At exactly eight twenty-three am, his body writhes. It shudders and concaves, too malnourished to save itself.

For a few beautiful seconds he feels pain, he feels human. Then, he doesn't feel. Except this time, he is actually dead, not practically.

* * *

Molly and Arthur cried. They sobbed and wept for days on end, because there is no pain equal to losing a child, especially when they had tried so hard to save him. But in the end, it was them who disregarded him first.

* * *

Bill remembers pacing in the hallway, he remembers looking at the unbearably white marble floor and thinking, why is it taking so long for them to help Percy in another one of his fits?

Then the news comes and he doesn't remember anything. It's dark and blurry and he remember voices, but when he wakes up, he is passed out on some hospital bed. They had to sedate him, but in his waking haze, he remembers the little brother he'd rejected time and time again and he feels the self-hate hit him like a ton of bricks.

* * *

When Charlie tries and thinks of memories with Percy, nothing comes to mind. There are family photos and reunions, days at school with sly nudges from friends and whispers of 'nerd'. But nothing substantial. No outstanding brother bond, no secret just between the two of them.

The thought makes him nearly puke in disgust and he spends over five minutes hyperventilating, Charlie thinks he is the most god awful big brother alive.

* * *

For their whole lives, the twins have been called one in the same. Two peas in a pod. George never doubted that until now.

George looks at his mother and he feels numb, because his parents aren't crying over his bossy older brother. They're crying over someone they don't know, so sombrely, George leaves the suffocating room and looks in the mirror. His fifteen year old self looks back at him blankly and slowly, he tries and makes sense of the skin and bones one room over and his prideful older brother.

Unlike George, who wallows, Fred celebrates. His heart aches, but he smiles and he jokes, because someone has to be strong and his parents just can't be strong in this situation. Charlie has locked himself away, same goes for George and Bill managed to break more than a few thousand quid's worth of stuff in his anger. So, Fred tells Ron funny jokes to distract him and plays rock scissors paper with Ginny to calm her and it works, so even though he's breaking at the seems, he laughs for them, with them and remembers an older brother who always gave and never took.

* * *

Penny hears two days later and she cries. No, she sobs and yells, she throws her hair brush at the mirror and she breaks, because why is she such a bitch?

Why did Percy care too much?

Why was he not good enough?

Too many questions run through her mind and mascara marks streak her face, eye shadow smudged, photos ripped and gifts thrown against walls repeatedly. Curse words ring through Penny's head and she wrecks everything. Somewhere in the back of her mind, looking at this wreckage, this devastation, her mind echoes, '_wreck it, like you wreck everything else in life.'_

* * *

This is Percy's sweet demise.

This is Percy's bittersweet demise.

* * *

**Um I have nothing to say really, except this was not how I planned it and it horrifies me slightly, so thank you for reading and all. Yup, bye. **


End file.
